A reader's journal sharing the insights of various authors and my take on a variety of topics, most often philosophy, religion & spirituality, politics, history, economics, and works of literature. Come to think of it, diet and health, too!

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Islam & the West: A Review of The West & the Rest: Globalization & Terrorist Threat by Roger Scruton

I admit that I’d been reluctant to read this book because it
was published in 2002, and I feared that it might be another ill-considered
rush to publication in the wake to 9/11. (It turns out that my concerns about
Scruton’s credentials were based on the erroneous assumption that
he was new to the field. In fact, Scruton published a book about Lebanon in
1987.) Besides, Scruton is a high-end philosopher and a conservative. Some
so-called conservatives have a propensity to rant. However, as I noted in arecent post, I’d read an essay by Scruton that I found persuasive, so I decided
to give this book a try, and I’m glad that I did—despite the false advertising.

False advertising? Well, the title—the most important
advertising a book ever receives—misleads. Despite an opening discussion of
Samuel Huntington’s “the clash of civilizations” hypothesis, Scruton only
focuses on two civilizations: “the West” (with its Jewish, Catholic, Protestant,
and Greco-Roman genealogy) and Islamic civilization. Scruton doesn’t address
China, Japan, India, or Russia (with its roots in Orthodox Christianity and
Marxism). Neither does Scruton spend much time addressing terrorism as such,
its sociology and ideology. Others have explored the roots of terrorists, such
as Scott Atran, for only one example. Finally, Scruton doesn’t spend much time
on globalization as an economic reality. So what does Scruton write about that
makes this book worthwhile? He writes about the characteristics of Islam
society and political thinking contrasted with that of Western institutions,
and he does so well and thoroughly.

In his preface, Scruton notes a contrast that will remain a
recurring theme throughout the book, that between the contemporary West and
Islam:

Islamic civilization
involves a common religious belief, based on a sacred text whose law may be
misapplied but never altered. It defines itself in terms not of freedom but of
submission. Islam, salm, and salaam—“submission,” “peace,” and “safety”— all derive from the
verb salima, whose primary meaning is “to be secure,” “unharmed,” or
“blameless,” but which has a derived form meaning “to surrender.” The muslim is the one who has surrendered,
submitted, and so obtained security. In that complex etymological knot is tied
a vision of society and its rewards far different from anything that has
prevailed in modern Europe and America.

Western civilization
also grew from a common religious belief and a sacred text, and, like Islam,
originated in a religious movement among Semitic people— albeit people living
under an imperial yoke, for whom submission was already a day-to-day reality.
Western civilization has left behind its religious belief and its sacred text,
to place its trust not in religious certainties but in open discussion, trial
and error, and the ubiquitousness of doubt.

Scruton, Roger
(2014-05-13). The West and the Rest:
Globalization and the Terrorist Threat. Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
Kindle Edition.

It is the uniqueness of modern Western institutions and
beliefs that set off the West against the traditions of Islam. Even when
Christianity was the dominant cultural fact in the West (such as in the High
Middle Ages), the theory of the Two Swords—of both ecclesiastical and secular
rulers exercising authority—differs from the ongoing practice in the lands of
Islam. Scruton details how Roman law and even Greek drama differentiate the
sacred and secular realms. Over the course of Western history, ideas of contract
and eventually social contracts—governance based on the consent of the
governed—began to take root. Scruton goes on to consider the proposition that
“we” (as in “We the People”) is a basis of Western polities. Based on his
analysis, the nation-state becomes a crucial instrument in fostering and
maintaining a sense of community that allows the existence of a self-governing
polity. After the Thirty Years War and the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), Europe
effectively established the nation-state as legal and international reality and
put most (but by no means all) of its religious strife about control of the
public realm behind it. (The French Revolution and “The Troubles” of Northern
Ireland among the significant exceptions.) Also, the nation-state, through the
vehicle of nationalism, came to supplement—if not supplant—the idea of God,
which following the Enlightenment became more of a matter of the head than of
the heart. Scruton summarizes his argument:

The point that I wish to
emphasize is that the emergence of the modern Western state, in which
jurisdiction is defined over territory, supported by secular conceptions of
legitimacy , and associated with the rights and duties of citizenship, has also
coincided with the emergence of a special kind of pre-political loyalty, which
is that of the nation, conceived as a community of neighbors sharing language,
customs, territory, and a common interest in defense.

Scruton, Roger
(2014-05-13). The West and the Rest:
Globalization and the Terrorist Threat (pp. 46-47). Intercollegiate Studies
Institute. Kindle Edition.

From this history, (much of) the West developed ideas of
citizenship, that, especially in the U.S., were crucial for incorporating
immigrants from far-flung lands. Scruton argues that this attitude contrasts
with the traditional ties still dominant in Islamic countries:

A modern democracy is
perforce a society of strangers. And the successful democracy is the one where
strangers are expressly included in the web of obligation. Citizenship involves
the disposition to recognize and act upon obligations to those whom we do not
know. The comparative absence of this disposition from the Islamic countries in
the Middle East has had catastrophic consequences, as attitudes shaped by
religion and family ties try to adapt themselves to a world made by strangers.
The clatter of industrial progress, the remorseless technological change, the
constant uprooting, pillaging, and tearing down , the tireless glare of the
media, the irresistible invasions by the state and its agents— all this
amplifies the desire to seek refuge in family, tribe, or religion, and to
divide the world into friends and foes.

Scruton, Roger
(2014-05-13). The West and the Rest:
Globalization and the Terrorist Threat (p. 53). Intercollegiate Studies
Institute. Kindle Edition.

After this point in the book, Scruton wanders off into
criticisms of multiculturalism and feminism, which, while not without merit,
tend to go carry on about excesses instead of considering common practices and
beliefs. However, Scruton is right about the values that give us the political
and legal system that we have is worth defending. The Western ideas about the
public realm do contrast markedly from the totalizing demands of Islam and
these differences do create problems that we in the West have a hard time
understanding. The nation-state in the Middle East, Iraq, for instance, just
doesn’t seem to work. Some do, such as Turkey and Egypt, but not without some
significant conflicts between the secular authorities and Islamic
fundamentalists.

Scruton digs more deeply into the contrast between Islamic
law and the secular law of the West to show the different beliefs and
assumptions of the two systems. This history and appreciation of the two
contrasting legal and cultural systems gives the reader a much greater
appreciation of the source of differences between our views of the world.
Finally, Scruton has a chapter on globalization, but it’s mainly about the
encroachment of a Western-dominated world into Islamic lands. For instance,
Scruton, who has published extensively about aesthetics, writes about the
destruction of traditional Islamic architecture in the name of modernizing
cities.

Scruton closes with this remark, which reveals a measured
and thoughtful response to our predicaments:

When people enjoy the
benefits of citizenship they treat the world in an open and enterprising way;
they become careless of the sacrifices on which sovereignty depends, and
oblivious of the corrosive force of human contact. And this state of mind,
which seems like good-natured toleration in the one who has succumbed to it,
may be seen from outside as intolerable hubris, calling down judgment from the
gods.

Nevertheless, we are rational creatures, and
nothing prevents us from thinking through alternatives to the habits that have
placed us in so much danger. Unless we are prepared to do so, the idea of a
“war against terrorism” makes little sense. Terrorism is not, after all, an
enemy, but a method used by the enemy. The enemy is of two kinds: the tyrant
dictator, and the religious fanatic whom the tyrant protects. To act against
the first is feasible, if we are prepared to play by the tyrant’s rules. But to
act against the second requires a credible alternative to the absolutes with
which he conjures. It requires us not merely to believe in something, but to
study how to put our beliefs into practice.

Scruton, Roger
(2014-05-13). The West and the Rest:
Globalization and the Terrorist Threat (p. 161). Intercollegiate Studies
Institute. Kindle Edition.

Therefore, if you’re interested in the particulars of
regimes in the Middle East or the particulars of where terrorists come from,
you should look elsewhere. But if you want an appreciation and understanding of
fundamental differences about how the West and Islam view and work in the
world, this is a well-considered effort to consider those issues.

About Me

I am currently living in Bucharest, Romania with my wife. I offer services as a freelance lawyer to other lawyers in the U.S. and abroad. I also blog @ http://sngabroad.blogspot.com and at http://greenleafadvocacy.com/persuasive-life-blog/